High Hopes
by Ellenka
Summary: "Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary… the ringing of the division bell had begun…" A bit of cathartic angst and high hope set at the very end of Mockingjay, with alternative ending potential.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** Everything you recognize from The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. Title & all quoted lyrics, including those in the summary: High Hopes by Pink Floyd.

**A/N:** Just a tiny hopefully-writer's-block-dispelling little story. I heard the song and couldn't resist. Now slightly edited, because I couldn't resist adding a bit more highly-hopeful ending.

Prologue - Gale.

* * *

**High Hopes**

* * *

**I.**

_Encumbered forever by desire and ambition  
There's a hunger still unsatisfied  
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon  
Though down this road we've been so many times_

* * *

I've always been too damn stubborn to accept defeat.

Which proved troublesome in a world where you are _born_ defeated.

After a life of dreaming about a rebellion, there was nothing I _wouldn't_ do when the dream finally came true. I had no idea how easily it can be turned into a nighmare for those who play by the enemy's rules, and don't even recognize all their enemies in the first place.

The victory's been achieved, but at what cost?

Instead of celebration there seemed to be only a huge mess for us to take care of, and I felt more or less responsible for a large part of it.

Volunteering to fix it seemed like the best course of action, and I keep telling myself that I didn't start from the easier and less painful end.

Even though the fucking mountain fortress that _had to be_ disabled looks a damn lot more like a mine from the inside. Bad enough even after the ceilings are no longer in danger of caving in, though I don't find it all that hard to imagine how it felt to be stuck there as everything collapsed.

Shouldn't've been worse than the bombing of Twelve.

But the fact that it was my idea to do it somehow makes it more unbearable.

We find a lot of things there, but _not_ blueprints for exploding parachutes. Which wouldn't prove anything. Even if the Capitol accomplished the idea first, I did it too, and unknowingly gave a perfect weapon to an even more insidious adversary.

And a proof wouldn't really matter anyway.

The haunted grief I saw in Katniss's eyes when I gave her the last arrow she ended up using to kill the person that hurt her even more than President Snow had told me as much.

And insinuated who might have hurt her the _most_, however inadvertently.

There was neither time nor place for reconciliation, not before she carried out her own sentence over Alma Coin, and been surrounded by guards and whisked away before I could get to her through the crowd and free her like she begged me to. It would have been like shooting an arrow through my own heart, but I would have done as much for her, even if I were to receive the same fate moments later.

But I couldn't.

All could do to help her was testifying at her trial, telling lies she'd kick me for if she were there to hear them, fighting to free her another way when I'd failed the one she so obviously preferred. But I couldn't've left her at their mercy.

In the end she'd been cleared of all charges and expressly carted off back to Twelve, to pick through the ashes of her mind.

I left for Two without a chance to say goodbye, telling myself I've done at least _something_ to assure she'll get a chance at a better life that still _might_ be in store for her, and selfishly holding onto the still extant chance that I _might_ see her again.

/

She never answered her phone or a letter… and to be honest, I couldn't imagine her actually reading mine anyway. All I had left of her were snippets of secondhand information, echoes of her numb suffering to haunt me when the images of collapses and firebombs gave me a break.

And they still hurt the most.

Because nothing that happened changed anything about the fact that I love her, and can't live with what remained of us, with how we parted.

I've never been the first in something that's never been a contest, and now I'm disqualified anyway, but I need to see her, at least once more. Just one more time, just to meet her somewhere where we can be ourselves, just to try if we see something else than two war-torn and war-divided strangers, to have a shot at some better memory to carry on with.

Perhaps the best thing for her would be if I let her go entirely and left her alone, but I tell myself I can't know for sure. Too much remained unsaid.

So I make a trip to Twelve as soon as I'm cleared to do so.

If nothing else, then just to say a meaningless little _sorry_ that remained stuck in my chest ever since the day we last parted and grew heavier every day, crushing the life out of me. Heavy like the dead weight of a little girl, heavy like a shattered mountain, heavy like our brave new fucking _unthinkable _world.

I'm halfway through the meadow that is being dug up and turned into a mass grave when I realize that Katniss probably won't even be in the forest at all.

Perhaps she has no reason to be, not anymore. Perhaps she has no strength to come there.

But it's still the first place where I'd go looking for her, and even though hoping to find her there would be hoping too high, I can't bring myself to turn back and go looking for her in a more probable place. Like the mockery of her life that is the Victor's Village where she'd been confined. No.

/

I'm good a few yards beyond the now-redundant fence when the air stops smelling of ashes. But the crisp, cool breeze fails to disperse the blackness stuck inside me.

Even if the forest is the same, I'm not, and I don't know if I could still belong here, even for a while.

Katniss would probably think I couldn't.

This is the place where we met again and again, this is the place where we shared the happiest times, but now I can't take for granted we'll meet here again, or that we'll ever walk the same path together.

But I'm a stubborn idiot.

The future we might have had has been darkly eclipsed, but I still look to the green horizon for a glimpse of hope.

I find it right on the ground - still muddy with spring thaw, in the form of the familiar footprints of a wingless mockingjay.

Who else would come here but her?

(_Or whoever remained of her after everything that happened_, I remind myself, but press on.)

After following the traces of hope down a path I could walk (and have so often walked!) entirely blind, I find her on our rock, looking so small and fragile in a place where we would be sitting together if anything was right in the world.

She sits there with her head bowed, palm covering her eyes and lips moving very slowly, soundlessly chanting something incomprehensible.

With sudden and jarring clarity, I'm reminded of a different time when I'd seen her like this, after the first Games, after she'd _won_.

Winning was bad enough, winning came close enough to destroying what she'd been.

What now?

Now she's lost, she's lost everything she'd fought for, and deliberately or not, the last haunting memory of her broken gaze holds me at least partly responsible.

At least as much as I hold myself.

There's no reason for it to have changed.

I almost turn to leave her.

But I can't.

After few seconds, I know she's counting, slowly counting to ten with her eyes covered, like she did so many times when she waited for me to appear, when she waited for me to join her. Like before, like always, because we belong here together.

There might still be a way.

If she thinks she waits here for me, there might just be.

I almost manage to stand my ground when her eyes open and fasten on me, filled with the old ashes and misery, and even older ghost of an old habit that died hard.


	2. I

**A/N:** Thank you all for your wonderful feedback. Special thanks to sinking815 for an inadvertently inspiring little rant ;)

Here comes Part two – Katniss.

Please excuse the inevitable dose of insanity and pain. Disclaimers still apply. One sentence is quoted verbatim from Mockingjay – one of the precious few I really like :P

* * *

**High Hopes**

* * *

**II.**

_Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us  
to a glimpse of how green it was on the other side_  
_Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again  
Dragged by the force of some inner tide _

* * *

Peeta said he'd found the primrose bushes in the woods. For _her_, he said. For Prim.

Primroses from the woods.

He inadvertently gave me strength to go there, because that's where I go to look for hope.

What could _I_ find in there?

Prim had hardly ever been in the woods. The longest time she'd spent there was when District Twelve no longer existed, when Gale lead the survivors to safety.

Lead _her_ to safety.

Only to end in another firebomb, one he might have designed and left for Coin to misuse. The flames are long gone and so is _her_ pain, but mine lingers on.

I'd stared into the fire for months, fire that took her, but she never emerged out of it.

Could she emerge out of the woods, a flower out of the endless green?

She can't.

_She no longer exists_, I remind myself. I have to remind myself every time.

I won't find her there.

But my feet carry me on.

Perhaps I'd at least find myself, but I don't know if that's worth it anymore.

/

Who else could I find in the woods?

Gale…

I could find Gale.

When I asked Greasy Sae about him, she told me he's in Two, with some sort of fancy job and I felt relieved.

Then and there, in the house where I'd willingly imprisoned myself, I felt relieved, relieved that I'll never have to face him again. That I'll never have to deal with my best friend turned stranger by the Capitol that oppressed us and by Thirteen that misused us.

That's what I saw when I met him last time. We stood in front of a mirror, uniformed for a meaningless ceremony, two strangers with a burning ghost dividing them.

Forever, or so I thought.

But that was there, in a place where I was a stranger to myself too.

Does it even count?

Here… here I find myself missing him.

This is our place. Innocent of ashes and ghosts of war and replete with memories of times when out smiles used to reach our eyes.

I don't know what would I do if I saw him again, not really. I don't know if I'd still see him through the prism of a screaming human torch burned into my eyelids.

It was wrong, all wrong, so much wrong I don't know what's right anymore.

Would it be right if I never saw him again?

I don't know.

All I know is that the woods felt more alive when I sensed his presence near, that I never felt natural here without him. Not after I'd returned after winning my first Games, not now when I'm returning after losing my last.

It feels odd to be coming here when I know that he won't be waiting and don't know if I could as much as bear seeing him again.

We are supposed to have set the world right, aren't we?

Then why is it so wrong? Why is the comfort I used to take for granted for so long _gone_?

I've lost Prim after having done everything in my power to save her, I've as good as lost my mother when our _second_ mutual love burned.

And I've lost Gale somewhere in her ashes and he lost me.

Could we still find each other here?

/

My feet are dragging by the time I make it to our old, _empty_ meeting place.

I approach the rock where Cressida filmed us, and shudder in disgust when I realize that my first impulse was to think about it as _the rock where Cressida filmed us_. Is this what remained of a place where I'd been happy for years? Has it been reduced to a prop in a propo? Along with the rest of my life?

No, it isn't, it can't be.

It's so much more.

Blinking rapidly, I dispel the image of a boy and a girl sitting here laughing, back when all their woes lay beyond a fence.

It _had been_ so much more.

Even if I met Gale here now, we wouldn't be laughing, and we'd be carrying all our burdens inside, burned forever into our souls.

After lowering my already exhausted body down, I wiggle and try to find a position that would feel natural and comfortable, but I can't find it. The rock is too wide and cold without Gale's body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did.

Every repetition is slower, the soundless syllables sluggish and tentative, as if reluctant to be chanted in vain.

When I open my eyes for the last time, I gasp as if seeing a ghost, a ghost of my old life that died along with my sister. I guess I wanted to see him, and yet I can't quite believe my eyes.

Gale wavers on his feet, as if torn between stepping forward and turning back.

But I want him to stay, at least long enough to prove he's real.

That at least _he_ can come back to me.

Or would I get along better with an illusion, as guilty or as innocent as I care to make it?

Perhaps yes, but I'm fed up with the fake.

Gale obviously understands and takes few steps towards me. He doesn't sit by my side, instead he sinks to one knee in front of me, bringing us exactly to eye-level.

Equal. Close.

_Really?_

Lifting my arms with some effort, I brush my hands over his shoulders, neck and face, with a touch as light as moth wings, making sure he's not a phantom come to haunt me.

Gale blinks slowly at the contact, lips moving soundlessly as if with some word that died unspoken, and snapping shut when I brush my fingers against them in a limp freefall down, suddenly overwhelmed and exhausted.

Really. It's him.

Gale.

Who is he to me now?

The twisted sadness still lingers between us, pressing the air from my lungs and rendering everything difficult.

We are back here. Together. Who are we now?

Gale is silent, but his eyes are expressive like open books, open for me to read.

We haven't really seen eye to eye for years, not since we'd been reaped apart for the first time.

And when we finally got the chance to fight together against the real enemy, we no longer worked as a team and we've done so much wrong for a cause I'd inadvertently started and he deliberately wanted to finish at all costs.

I fought to finish off one person whose death didn't even matter to me in the end, Gale fought to finish off the war for good. We were both fighting, regardless of the collateral damage.

And _we_ became another casualty.

Like Prim.

The last time I volunteered to go to the Capitol, I did it in order to take a life, not to save one. She volunteered to save lives and lost hers in the process, because anything we do can be turned against us.

I learned it. Prim learned it. Gale learned it.

All too late.

My lids scrunch shut over eyes blinded by sudden blasting fire, fire devouring a girl in a white medic uniform, fire devouring a white rose.

_If we burn, you burn with us_.

That's what I said and my words came more true than I'd ever want them to.

We burned, we all burned, and it hurts so much I can hardly bring myself to care that the Capitol burned as well.

/

I more sense than hear Gale's suppressed sigh. He'd given me time to collect my rambling thoughts and doesn't try to make me look at him. I find myself grateful for that.

He knows. He understands. Always.

"Hey, Katniss," he says carefully, as if afraid a breath would break me.

And it almost does, but it's the breath I'm trying and failing to take. The guilt and sorrow I saw in his eyes equal and exacerbate my own, suddenly heavy enough to sink down and form a lump in my throat.

"Gale," I choke out.

"Catnip." His voice is soft with regret and loaded with tender concern. His breath on my face is warm with life, not scorching with heat of the flames, but I still shrink away. Gale inhales a sharp breath and continues after a tiny pause. "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have come at all. But I had to see you at least once more, I had to tell you how much I regret everything that…"

I'm still not looking at him, I'm not really listening. Hearing his voice is enough.

I know that the pain I'd seen in his eyes the day we last parted just grew heavier and sunk deeper and dug harder, torturing him like mutt claws.

He'd told me I'll always be thinking about it, and I guess he was right, but it was just as true for him.

And I know Prim wouldn't want it that way.

Gale didn't reap her. He didn't send her to the Capitol. He just wanted to do anything to assure that nobody else would have to go there against their will anymore.

That nobody else would have to go through what I went through. What she went through. What we went through.

Why did it have to end with the worst possible disaster? Why did we fail the person we'd both have given anything to protect?

_Why?_

The question is so heavy I can't bear it.

I lean forward and Gale must mirror my movement, because my forehead almost immediately falls onto his shoulder. I turn my head slightly, burying my nose in his neck and clenching my fists in his shirt so tightly my knuckles hurt; suddenly holding onto the only tangible remnant of the life _before_ with all that's left of my strength.

Gale's arms wrap around me, vainly striving to hold me together, his lips are in my hair now, still muttering breathless apologies I don't care about, over and over again.

I don't know when I start crying, I certainly wasn't planning to. I just _do_ and the grief that's been stuck and sealed inside me breaks out, unstoppable. But the tears feel somehow good, somehow cleansing, as if they washed away the ashes to reveal a pure memory.

I don't know how long we stay like this. Time doesn't exist, only tears, and I cry until they run dry and my head spins with exhaustion.

I can barely hold it up as I pull away and try to sit straight, so Gale gently cups my face to support me, his thumbs caressing my salty-wet cheeks.

There's no blood on his hands, just tears. I lay one hand on his to share them.

The crippling ache in my heart remains, but it feels just a little sweeter, and the misty forest just waking up from winter sleep is just a little greener.

When I focus my blurry gaze on him, Gale no longer looks like a stranger against that backdrop.

I'd been too wracked by my own sobs to register his, if he'd indeed uttered any, but his eyes are moist now, just flooded ashes and no fire. Mirroring mine. No longer the eyes of someone who'd casually deal destruction.

Prim is dead in them now, but also alive, somewhere very deep within where the fondest memories lie.

He knew her and loved her, he knew and loved me back when I had her, and even though it see her death when I look at him, I see something else too, something I'd lose forever if I let him slip away. Something I don't want to lose.

Perhaps someday, I'll see only the life.

But now I close my eyes again, because I can't bear to see the image of death.

I feel Gale lean forward and press a butterfly kiss between my eyebrows, like a third eye that's not blinded. "I know it's not something I could ask of you," he whispers against my skin. "I can't really ask you for forgiveness. But I hope that someday, you'll be able to look at me without so much pain."

"I don't know," I whisper. Then few more words, I don't even know where I get the strength to say them, but truth obviously has ways of surfacing. "I'd want to."

"That's more than I hoped for, Catnip," Gale whispers. He hesitates slightly, but tightens his arms around me when I don't pull away. It feels right, him holding me tight, like at the very beginning, right after I believed I'd saved Prim.

Perhaps something can be salvaged after all.

Relaxing slightly, I lean against him and breathe.

It seems a little easier now. Just a little. Some of the nightmarish pressure on my chest is gone, replaced by his solid warmth and strength.

/

I wake up with screaming a name, flailing and clutching at cold fabric.

Cold.

She's gone.

Disappeared in hot flames.

My eyes fly open, wide and frightened.

I'm on top of the covers of my bed, fully clothed, only my boots are off.

Moments later, my vision focuses and I discern Gale sitting on the floor by the bed, close but not quite touching me. His face hovers above mine, lines of worry and dejection accentuated by the moonlight streaming through unshuttered windows.

I flinch and curl into a tight ball.

"Shh, it's just me. I'm not gonna hurt you," he whispers. I vaguely register how much pain the need to reassure me cost him, but I can't deal with it, not now. "You fell asleep," he explains when I don't react. "I carried you here."

"Ah…" I breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Fire. No fire. Ashes. No ashes. "Good."

It's just Gale. He's here for me. He's always been. _It's okay_. "It's okay," I say aloud. "Thanks?"

One corner of his mouth twitches slightly upwards. "Anything, Catnip."

I nod to the best of my ability, and tentatively watch him. Just Gale. My Gale. It's okay.

I want to believe it, I want.

"D'you want me to stay?" he asks softly.

I consider it for a moment and shake my head slightly, eyes closed again. Flames are just as bright behind them. "Not now."

"Later?" he asks in a voice that almost breaks my heart. The hope is high and I don't want to shoot it down. Both for his sake and mine.

"Yeah."

"Whenever you are ready, Catnip. I'll wait as long as you need me to."

I open my eyes and somehow manage a slight smile. I thought I'd forgotten how to do it.

But maybe not. Maybe things can be good again.

Gale smiles back, this time a real smile, _his_ smile. The smile of my best friend from the time of memories when the grass was greener and the light was brighter. When our light was sun, not fire.

Then he turns away, reaching the door in a few soft lithe steps. When it closes after him, I feel a bit of relief, and a bit of emptiness.

I hope that someday, I'll be ready to fill the void permanently.

Because anything else would be unthinkable. Letting Gale go would be just another unbearable loss, and I'm forced to deal with too much of that already.

When I close my eyes, the first flash I see is his bright grin. Peaceful sleep takes me before I see the second.


	3. II

**A/N:** Since I obviously prefer updating "complete" stories, here comes chapter 3 (continuation of Katniss's POV), to be followed by a short alternative epilogue-ish bit. Thanks to everyone for reading & reviewing, and for bearing with my scatterbrained updating tendencies. And with this scatterbrained story too. :)

* * *

**High Hopes**

* * *

**III.**

_At a higher altitude with flag unfurled  
we reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world…_

This time I don't scream when I wake, just gasp loudly when I find myself staring into the serrated grin of Greasy Sae. Pale morning light glints off her scarce teeth, blinding my sleepy eyes.

"Some-un had a good hunt yesterday, huh?" she says by the way of greeting.

My fuzzy brain takes a while to piece the meaning together.

Good hunt. Yesterday.

Someone. Who?

Me.

Yes, I went hunting yesterday.

I went into the woods, but hardly dragged myself to the place from where my hunts always _started_. But I insist that I went hunting, because that's what I do, even though I had hardly enough strength to carry my bow.

"I swear when the boy turned up carrying you like that, I thought you were dead," remarks Sae to fill the silence left by my lack of answer.

Hunting.

I hadn't come there to die, not even to kill. I went hunting for some trace of _my_ life. And my faithful hunting partner was there to help me out.

I found him and he found me. It was like magic, but why not, why couldn't the impossible odds be in our favor at least once?

"Gale found me. It was okay." I smile slightly.

Funny how I fell asleep on him so soundly I didn't wake while he carried me home, at least not wide enough to remember it now. Perhaps both the physical strain of the longest trip I'd made in a long time and the emotional exhaustion from pouring my bottled hysteria out after months of lethargy was too much for my almost-collapsing constitution to bear. Perhaps I felt good in his arms, at least subconsciously. After all, I've always been safe with him in the woods. The nightmares caught up with me only here.

Nightmares of something that wasn't his fault. Not really. Nightmares of something that was supposed to tear us apart.

I blink rapidly, trying to quench the phantom flames blooming in my mind's eye with a sprinkling of real tears.

I won't let _us_ go without a fight, and neither would Gale, not when he knows it's not lost.

Sae grins, fondness and nostalgia lending unfathomable beauty to the grimace.

"Sure he'd find ya, sweetheart," she says softly.

I frown suspiciously. "You knew he was here?"

"Nope. He must of gone looking for you there first."

I nod at that. Figures. I went looking for myself into the woods as well. Or did I go looking for him?

I don't know, maybe both. I didn't find everything there, not by a long shot, but found enough to build on.

Sae lays a plate on the bedside table with a clunk. Two eggs, sunny side up. And cheese buns.

I gape at them wordlessly and she chuckles.

"Your other boy sends his regards. He went off to Haymitch's yesterday, but seems to have sobered up and remembered about you by the morning."

I open and close my mouth few times. "What?"

Sae just shakes her head at me. "First nothing, then too much, huh? Just eat up, sweetheart. Better trouble your head on a full stomach."

I nod mutely and watch her bustle out of my room, my mind somewhere else.

Peeta.

He's back too. He brought me primroses, bright yellow flowers to give me hope and strength to carry on. And cheese buns. I can feel my lips stretching into a smile at the thought.

Some habits don't die at all. He still knows what to give me.

And what can I give to him, after everything that's happened?

I don't know.

However willing I'd been to die for him, I never quite knew how to live with him, what to do without the threat of death hanging above our heads. But now we have all the time we need to figure it out.

And I'll probably need a lot of time, because I just don't feel up to anything much right now.

My head is fuzzy, I'm weak and my chest still feels strangely light, as if empty now that the weight of my grief has been slightly lifted. Problem is that there wasn't much more than grief left of me.

I feel like I could easily blow away. My shell's been emptied to the point of collapsing upon itself, and filling it with substance and sustenance would take time and effort. But I feel slightly more inclined to undertake it now.

I begin from the easiest end and wolf down the breakfast, pouring the soft egg-yolks over the cheese buns like liquid sunlight.

Perhaps things can be good again.

When I'm done, I stall a little, idly watching dust motes dancing in the light as if they mattered. Then I steely myself to rise, carry the dish down and surprise Sae by cleaning it up myself.

There's a lot of mess I need to clean up myself, but one has to start _somewhere_.

/

Later, when I open the door to brave the world of the living again, a small furry creature bounds past my legs.

Buttercup. Even he found me after all.

He doesn't stop to acknowledge my presence and streaks further into the house, disappearing from my sight within seconds.

_You won't find __**her**_, I think, closing my eyes. The crazy cat returned, but only to find darkness instead of the ray of light he came looking for.

I sink down against the wall by the door and wait patiently, eyes covered by slightly shaking hands, but checking every now and then. When he finds out she's not here, he'll probably want to run again. I want to see him on the way out, just as a reminder. Just one last time.

When Buttercup does appear, he moves sluggishly, as if the effort of the vain search exhausted him beyond fight and flight, and stops close, but not touching me.

I stare into his ugly little face through a haze of tears, and still somehow perceive how similar we in fact are. Unappealing and ill-tempered creatures that have been blessed by the love of the most adorable and charming person to ever be.

It's me who leans closer, Catnip to a cat.

"Bad news, furball. It's only me left now," I mutter. Tears slide down my cheeks and Buttercup hisses as they hit his fur, but doesn't bolt. I tentatively reach my hand to bat the pearly drops away. He doesn't try to claw at my hand, as if he knew Prim would've wanted it that way, as if he understood I'm the only reminder of her he has left. Of course it's a preposterous thought, but I find a little solace in it and refuse to let it go.

Overcoming my ingrained disgust, I hug the hideous cat like Prim would, and he lets me.

Prim's light may be extinguished in this world, but lingers within, and I'm not letting it die there.

I have to carry on. For her. She _saved_ lives, and wouldn't forgive me if I allowed mine to be wrecked by her absence.

/

After finally making my way out, I notice a dark figure in the distance, heading uphill, a light travel bag slung over their shoulder. I recognize him instantly, I'd know Gale's movements anywhere.

For a second, I contemplate running back and slamming the door. What will I see in the daylight, in the burned down district?

But then I just take a deep breath instead, and walk forward to meet him. I don't want to hide behind the door of a house in the Victor's Village. I don't want to risk letting him leave without a goodbye, not anymore. Not without reassuring him he can come back.

"Hey," he says softly when we slow down few paces apart.

"Hey," I choke out.

"I'll have to go back, Catnip. Got called early. I wanted to... try to see you again." He still sounds uncertain, as if he didn't know how I'd react, and it tears at my heart because I don't know myself. All I know is I want Gale to look at me without the haunted guilt. I want to look at him without seeing a shadow of death.

"It's okay," I try to reassure both of us.

Closing my eyes, I stretch my hands in front of me and feel his clasp around them, carefully but tightly. His hands are rough, hands that can both comfort and kill, just like mine. We'll have to learn to live with it, because while we live, we can always find a second chance.

"Will you come here again?" I ask.

I hear the smile in his voice. "Sure."

"Good. I'll walk you to the station." Maybe I'm pushing it, but the hope I glimpse in Gale's eyes when I look at him is worth it. He gives my hands one more squeeze and lets go.

We walk in silence, not looking at each other, but our feet still easily find their synchronized rhythm.

/

On my way back, I run to Peeta in the Town. "Thanks for the cheese buns," I blurt instead of a proper greeting.

He looks pleasantly surprised. "Anytime, Katniss." He briefly glances back in the direction he'd come from. "I may be opening a new bakery soon."

I find a smile at that. He knows how to go on too. "Good for you."

His answering smile falls slightly. "Only for me?"

"Everyone else too. And me. I'm glad you're back. And... okay."

He _looks_ okay now. Survived the games, the war, the fire... just like I did... and just like Prim didn't...

I feel my hands begin to shake.

He sighs and moves closer to support me. I let him and cling to him, as guiltily and gratefully as ever. "I wish I could say the same to you," he mutters into my ear.

I wonder if any of us will ever _be _okay.

I cringe slightly. "Yeah, me too."

The war might be over, but our individual fights are not. Maybe someday...

At least we can still fight together.

* * *

It takes time, but we learn to find purpose and learn to organize our lives without an oppressor to exploit them, and without letting nighmares paralyze us. More and more people are coming back, slowly rebuilding what once was, new and better. I'm busy hunting, because that's what I do best and supplies still lag now and then. Peeta is busy at the new bakery, working obsessively and providing smiles along with the bread, reuniting with old friends, and he making new ones too.

I can't be more grateful for him being around and reasonably happy, because I know we need each other in our lives. To what capacity, time will tell.

The world isn't watching us anymore, and it's fine that way.

But I often watch his hands knead dough or frost cakes, both skills that stubbornly elude me, yet remind him of better times – of a foundation that survived everything. I'd felt them caress me, I'd felt them strangle me, both in situations that would never have happened if it hadn't been for the games, but watching them now gives me a sense of peace, an assurance that the worst times are over and that the better don't have to be defined by them more than we allow.

That however much of ourselves we have given, something remains to be salvaged.

/

I don't feel like salvaging romances yet, though, neither fake nor real.

I need to piece myself together first, just to make sure that I can do it, that I can live without tying my identity to someone else. That I can talk and smile and hug and give and take without a danger, guilt or remorse urging me beyond my comfort zone.

/

Gale works in Two for a time, but his visits become increasingly frequent when his family moves back to Twelve. I look forward to seeing him more and more, and always take time to be alone with him out in the woods, just us, just friends, just good times.

Sometimes I still have to look away, sometimes I look at him and I see Prim laughing as he spun her around or carried her on his shoulders when I was no longer strong enough to do so.

The flames I see between us are sometimes phantom, and sometimes they are real - that of campfires we light to keep warm.

/

When Haymitch asks me about boy trouble, or whether I'd broken any hearts lately, I threaten to break his nose and he clutches his chest in response. Then we usually drink until we laugh and laugh until we puke and even that's okay. Life goes on.

I realize my options are still extant, and that new ones are opening for everyone, but since my emotions are no longer pertinent to national security, I don't feel pressured. And if I ever did, I still have my bow and know how to use it.

I'm done with pain and death, but a warning shot into the air wouldn't hurt anyone, now, would it?


	4. Epilogue

And to cap it off, a doubly unofficial bit of epilogue.

Just because my usual pairing preference :P

* * *

**High Hopes**

* * *

**(IV.)**

_Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young  
in a world of magnets and miracles…_

And sometimes, there are moments when I'd deserve a warning shot myself, but can't bring myself to stay away. Perhaps I'll never stop playing with fire.

Like now:

Gale is back for the longest vacation yet, the air is warm and the primroses are blooming (I've always like them better out in the woods, where they belong).

He glances at me, frowns in brief contemplation and brushes his fingers against one – as if he wanted to pluck it from its stem, but thought better of it. He wouldn't hurt a primrose.

Few hundred silent yards later, when we sit down on the rock we still consider _ours_, he lifts an empty hand to my temple and brushes few stray dark tresses behind my ear instead of slipping a flower into my hair like he'd perhaps intended to. I like it better that way and shift a bit closer. I'd got accustomed to coming here alone during his necessary absences, but it still feels better when we are here together. Not just okay, but better.

I look into Gale's eyes now and see new life springing from the ashes, ashes that will never be forgotten. We won't let them be forgotten.

When he speaks, he stirs another memory, a ghost of a past that never happened, and I don't know what present it would've yielded. Perhaps similar for us right in this moment, but different for thousands of others, for better or for worse.

This time, it's a question, not an assessment. "Run away with me, Catnip?"

I'm no longer afraid of ghosts, though, and he said it like a joke anyway.

I snort with laughter and smack his knee playfully. "Pushing your luck? What makes you think I'd wanna be stuck with you?"

Gale shrugs with a smile. "I'm not asking for forever. Just a little escape. We can go wherever we want now."

"Okay, then," I say and he smiles wider. I return the smile without hesitation now. Just because I can. There still is something to smile about.

When he tentatively lays his hand on my cheek and leans forward, I don't pull away. Instead, my lips meet his halfway, because just once is not enough, not when we can have more.

There's nobody watching now.

It's just us. It's okay.

We are strong enough to be together despite everything that happened and strong enough to be apart, whatever we choose. We can stay, we can run. Nobody will punish us; nobody will be interrogated and threatened in our absence.

We are free to come and go now. Free to live, free to love.

Free.

The concept still takes some getting used to. Especially for me, since the fight for freedom has practically wiped my mind blank and I'm only slowly filling it again, gathering fragments of the past, striving to fulfill and savor the present, slowly allowing myself thoughts of future.

I don't know what exactly I want it to hold, not yet. I don't feel up to making binding choices, not so soon after becoming unbound and damn close to undone.

And I'm not alone.

I know that my friends, fellow fighters, my fellow victors, feel similarly. All are dear to me, each in a different way, and I'm not letting decisions get between us again.

We are still young, survivors in a reborn world, free to forge our own futures to the best of our ability. Our choices will be our own from now on. With freedom comes responsibility and there's no happily ever after, every day is both a reward and a challenge. But we will go on.

We've been through worse.


End file.
